The Best Rest You Will Ever Get

How important is your sleep to you? Do you look forward to the end of the day when you are completely worn out, and you finally get to sit down or lie down and just rest? (The older you are the more you look forward to that moment at the end of the day). It is funny how we can remain active to a certain point each day and then all of a sudden, our bodies just tell us that we are DONE! When that moment comes, how satisfying it is to stop all activity and simply rest.

Before you read any further I would like you to pause and look away from this article and read Hebrews chapter 4. I’m serious. Do it. If you don’t stop right now and read Hebrews 4 then the remainder of what you are going to read isn’t going to have the necessary impact. Plus, you will get some Bible reading in for the day. Now go read it! (This is where the pause in this article happens for at least 5 minutes while you read Hebrews 4 and think about what it means).

Did you notice how many times the author of Hebrews mentions “rest”? There are several ideas being discussed in this chapter that have to do with rest:

1. God rested after the 7^th day of creation. (When He was finished with His work).
2. The Israelites were offered rest in the promised land of Canaan.
3. Many of them failed to enter the rest because of disobedience.
4. A challenge remains for the people of God today to make sure to enter God’s heavenly rest.
5. We have access to God through Jesus, our High Priest, who through His blood provides rest.

When I think about heaven, sometimes I am reminded that it will be something like that feeling of peace and happiness we have in that moment we lay down and rest after a very hard day. The difference is that we will be fully awake. We will have cause to rejoice and worship God, yet at the same time our spirits will be at rest. Heaven will be a retreat from the cares and worries and struggles of life. All of the things that wear us out will no longer exist.

If you could call to mind the best nap you ever took, or the best night of sleep you ever had that refreshed you, the rest of heaven will be better. Heaven is not a place of physical rest. It is a home of the soul. In reality the things that truly make us tired are those concerns that challenge us on the inside. We might get a good night’s sleep on a given night but we know that in the morning we will have more labors and cares. In heaven, God is preparing a place that is free from anything that will ever trouble us. Therefore heaven is the most desirable and precious existence we could ever seek to obtain.

It is hard to imagine a place that is so perfect that we will not have problems. But if we really think about it, as long as we are in this world we can never completely rest. That is why heaven is heaven. It is the place where we can finally settle down at the end of a long journey and live in eternal and perfect peace.

Are you tired, worn out, discouraged, anxious, troubled, or heavy laden? We have a God who offers us rest from every single thing in this life that wears us down. As I travel on the pathway of life and the years are compiling, I often think that I am getting nearer each moment to the end of a very long day…a day which has both blessings and sorrows, but in the end thankfulness for the simple fact that I lived it. I know I am looking forward to that time where I can simply cease from the labors and struggles of that day and enjoy the joy that comes with complete rest.

We have a God who is preparing for us the best rest we will ever get. It is only something I can see through the eye of faith. But I believe that it will be worth every sacrifice it takes to receive it.

“There remains therefore a rest for the people of God…Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.” – Hebrews 4:9, 11.

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AUTHOR: Jeremiah Tatum